Chapter 27
Something was up. Steven hadn’t shown up for work this morning. He wasn’t my favorite person, but I could admit he was reliable. He always showed up on time and got the work done. When I asked Blaine if he had heard from him, he directed me to Adam. Adam had been avoiding me since Blaine’s ride on Belle yesterday, but I finally found him repairing a fence.
“Is Steven sick?” I asked. “Maybe someone should go check on him.”
Adam didn’t look up from his work. I couldn’t see his face beneath his ball cap. “Gone,” he grunted in a non-enlightening way.
“Gone?” I repeated. “Gone where? How long? For today? A week?”
“For good.”
My forehead furrowed. What the heck did that mean? “Is he dead?”
I was mostly joking, but then Adam muttered, “Not yet,” and that made me nervous.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“But—”
“Later.”
I knew Adam well enough to know I wasn’t going to drag it from him until he was ready to talk. “Fine.”
I stalked back to the barn. Now that Belle had proven rideable, it was time for her real training to begin. I set my sights on preparing her for a cow horse open reining class in Denver—an event big enough to get a feel for how she performed under pressure, but small enough that a bad showing wouldn’t be much of a hit to the ranch. That gave us a month to teach her the basics of herd work, rein work, and fence work.
It also gave us a month to find a rider. For that, I turned to Essie Price.
Essie had shown up at Lodestar Ranch bright and early to take Magpie for a ride and check on his progress. Watching Essie take Magpie around the barrels, I knew she was the one I wanted on Belle for her first show. Her hands were soft, her seat independent. She exuded grace and confidence, and I was sure she could convince Belle to do her best.
“What do you think?” I asked her after I had explained my plan for Belle.
She fingered the reins thoughtfully. “Maybe. I’m already one of the oldest on the barrel racing circuit, and I’ve been trying to figure out my next move. This could be a good opportunity to get a start in reining.” She grinned at me. “With one of the top trainers in the country, no less.”
I smiled back. “You and Belle would have my undivided attention for the next month.”
“That sounds great.” She chewed her lip. “But you can’t pay me. I want to keep my non-pro status next year as I get my feet wet.”
“Still bending rules, Essie?” Brax drawled, joining us at the rail. “People really don’t change after high school, I guess.”
Essie arched one perfectly shaped brow. “Well, you still have that stick up your ass, so I guess you’re right.”
It was hard to tell if this thing between them was true animosity or some bizarre mating ritual. The air practically crackled between them. I stepped back, not wanting to get electrocuted.
“You really think it’s fair for a rider of your capabilities to compete as a non-pro?” Brax challenged.
“In the first place, we’re not talking about a non-pro event. I’d be riding Belle in an open class against pros and non-pros. As I’m sure you know,” Essie said, her words laced with sarcasm, “the difference between the two is whether you get paid to ride, not skill level.”
Brax leaned into her space, bringing his hand to her cheek under the pretext of stroking Magpie’s mane. Although from the way her eyes spit fire at him, maybe she didn’t know it was a pretext.
“The other difference is ownership of the animal,” Brax reminded her. “As I’m sure you know. Non-pros have to be the sole owner of the horse they ride.”
“The class is actually a Limited Open, which means any non-pro who hasn’t received more than twenty grand in prize earnings for the year can enter without owning the horse. Which you would know if you had bothered to ask before butting your nose into our conversation. I’m not breaking any of your precious rules.”
There didn’t seem an end in sight to their standoff, so I cleared my throat. They both looked up. Brax stopped fiddling with Magpie’s mane. I was sure I saw his fingertips skim her throat as he stepped back. Interesting.
“Are you looking for Adam?” I asked. “He’s out in the pasture grunting at fence posts.”
Brax smirked at that. “Sounds like Adam, but since I told him I’d be here, he should be waiting for me in his office. I’m heading there now. Actually, you should come, too.”
“Sure.” I didn’t know what this was about, but paperwork seemed like a fair assumption. As far as I could tell, paperwork was Brax’s specialty at Lodestar. I glanced at Essie. “Jesse can help you get Magpie squared away, but you’re welcome to hang out as long as you want.”
“Thanks. I’ll take care of Magpie myself. I like doing it.”
A horsewoman after my own heart.
I nodded to Brax. “Let’s go.”
“You want to tell me why Steven McAllister thinks he has a case against Lonestar Ranch for assault?” Brax asked pleasantly, wasting no time.
I froze with my butt halfway to the chair, then fell the rest of the way with an audible thump. “What?” I turned to Adam with eyes wide. “What?”
Adam drummed his fingers against his thigh. My attention snagged on the ugly red welts along his knuckles.
“What happened to your hand?” I asked, forgetting Brax was still waiting for an answer. And then Adam turned to look at me and I got a clear shot of his face for the first time. I gasped. “What happened to your face?”
His expression was an inscrutable scowl. “Nothing.”
I bristled. “It’s not nothing—”
Brax cleared his throat. “According to Mr. McAllister, at approximately 11:15 yesterday morning, you entered the breakroom. The two of you argued and then you attacked him.”
Adam crossed his arms. He refused to look at me, no matter how hard I stared at him. “I fired him. Then I punched him.”
Brax looked to the ceiling as though praying for divine intervention. “That doesn’t sound better.”
“Well, then how does this sound? Steven put one of my employees in danger. When I confronted him about it, he admitted it. So I fired him. He didn’t take kindly to that, and we scuffled a bit. The end.”
“Not quite,” Brax said mildly.
I split a look between them, trying to figure out what the hell they weren’t saying. As far as I knew, the only person who had been in danger at Lodestar was me. But no one had put me in danger. Falling off horses was part of riding. “Is this about me? Because I fell off Belle?”
When Adam didn’t answer, I looked pleadingly at Brax, but he just shook his head and sent me back to his irritating brother. “Adam, answer me. Look at me.”
He turned to me, finally, and when he did, his mouth softened. “He scared Belle on purpose, James. He wanted you to fall.”
I reeled back. “But why? Why would he do something like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think he actually wanted to see you hurt,” Adam said gently. “He didn’t think of the consequences, that’s all. He was being a dumbass, but I can’t let that kind of thing happen here. He had to go.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But you didn’t have to punch him.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Oh, yes, I fucking did.”
Brax’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “He claims you hit him first after”—Brax paused and squeezed the bridge of his nose—“after he called your girlfriend a slut.”
Girlfriend? Adam had a girlfriend?
What. The. Fuck.
I twisted in my chair to reach past the space between us and slap him across the stomach. “You have a girlfriend?” I shouted. “Who? Who is she?”
“Ah!” Adam grunted, lifting his arm to block my next hit. “Woman—”
“James,” Brax said.
“What?” I snapped.
“You’re the girlfriend in question.”
“Me? What are you talking about? I’m not…” I looked from Brax to Adam and my voice died on the look of Come on, seriously? he served me. Oh, shit. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know why Steven would think that.” My voice pitched higher than normal.
Brax stared at me. Hard. I chewed my lip and tried to look like someone who hadn’t had the best sex of her life with his brother.
Brax turned his stare to Adam. “He also says you threatened his life.”
“It wasn’t a death threat,” Adam protested. “It was a boundary. So long as he stays away from James, he’s got nothing to worry about.”
“Fucking hell.” Brax dragged his hands down his face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “All right. Here’s what I need to know. Are you two together? Because that determines how I handle this.”
“In what way?” Adam asked. Carefully. I took note of that.
“If you’re together, he has a stronger case. He could paint you as a jealous boyfriend who went crazy on him. Maybe that would put wrongful termination on the table, seeing how you’re his boss…and hers.” Brax shrugged. “If you’re not together, that weakens his case. I might be able to convince him to walk away with a small payment for his troubles. He seems more interested in money than pressing charges.”
Tension rolled off Adam in waves. And I knew he was about to do something stupid. Like tell Brax the truth out of some misguided sense of duty toward me. But I couldn’t let him do that.
Lodestar Ranch and his family were everything to Adam. And I was…Well, I wasn’t the love of his life. That title had already been claimed. And I refused to be another duty to him. Another responsibility. Not when we could both walk away from this before either of us got hurt. Before the ranch got hurt.
“We’re not together,” I said firmly. I could feel Adam’s eyes burning into me, but I kept my gaze focused straight ahead on his brother. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
For a long moment, no one said a word. The room was so quiet I could hear the sounds of horses chewing their oats in the barn.
“You’re sure?” Brax asked. “Because I can—”
“You heard the woman. We’re not together,” Adam bit out.
I blanched. I wanted to touch him. Soothe whatever sore spot I had rubbed open. But I couldn’t do that here. Later. Later we would talk it through, and everything would be okay. We would go back to a strictly professional relationship, on and off Lodestar property. He understood as well as I did that putting the ranch at risk wasn’t acceptable.
Brax looked from Adam to me and back to Adam again. He shook his head.
“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll make this go away.”